Some facts about ethnic media:
• Ethnic media reaches 50 million adult users in America.
• Latino populations use it the most, Asian Americans use it the least.
• Just in the city of Atlanta: 14 Korean newspapers!
• Ethnic media are first-responders in an emergency, advocates and decision makers in their communities.
• Over 6000 ethnic media outlets in US -- over 100 languages.
• Ethnic media gets less than 5 percent of corporate ads.

Shruti from India Currents says: "Writing for a publication like this you have the power to reflect ... your ideal community, a dynamic process. Really conscious of how I am representing my community to both insiders and outsiders." She talks about the eternal questions: to be or not to be labelled "ethnic." Who is our "we" -- especially when reporting on ethnic communities (e.g., for India Currents, are they Hindu)? Ragini leads a case study on India Currents, founded in 1987: incomparably low advertising rates and completely free distribution. She asks, "What happens when your "marginalized" community is in?" -- referencing the post-Slumdog Millionaire moment. For those who haven't seen it, India Currents has TONS of ads: Indian real estate agents, dance recitals, law firms, etc.; Ragini makes a case that this supports the community.

Esther Kaplan [1] of The Nation Institute [2] asks about possibilities for investigative journalism in the ethnic media. Good question ... something that Hyphen has been trying to figure out. I think ethnic media doesn't do investigative reporting because of lack of funding. That's why we've been kicking around the idea of having donors give to a specific "Hyphen Investigative Story Fund." What do people think?

Running out of time here but I really want to communicate with Ragini and Shruti -- second gen South Asian Americans -- about working in intergenerational media. Whereas Hyphen is primarily (almost completely) second gen, the publisher of India Currents is first-generation. It would be great to discuss the pros and cons of this.